Between 2015 and 2016, three websites that are crucial for shaping the narratives and research agendas of the new guard in the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network started online. These sites largely recycled the conversion narratives of the old guard but laundered them through the voices of “parents” of trans kids who refused to affirm their children. By 2017 and 2018, the “old guard,” including Bailey, Blanchard, Zucker and others, made their way into the sites’ conversations, helping lay the groundwork for the next iteration of the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience “research” agenda.[26]

The sites frequently frame affirming care and conversion therapy as issues of “parent’s rights,” with the parents on the site understood as protecting kids from an “experimental” affirming approach. Much of the writing, however, details the way parents – some of whom claim to have academic credentials – refuse to accept their transgender kids. The sites chronicle the mostly anonymous parents’ “struggles” against medical providers who encouraged them to accept their trans kids and share stories of how they thwarted their children's attempts to seek out affirming spaces, rather than the harm inflicted on the children living in a transphobic society.[27]

Yet, the sites would become more than just a place where supposedly concerned parents and caregivers learn to deny the reality of trans existence. The sites served an important purpose linking U.K. and U.S. trans-exclusionary feminists (often referred to as TERFs). In addition, by the end of 2016, they became sources for a pseudoscientific narrative that has since solidified the anti-LGBTQ+ movement: rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) and the spread of trans identity through “social contagion.”

4^th Wave Now

In March 2015, 4^thWaveNow was launched by “Denise” (also known as Denise Caignon, Marie Verite and Janette Miller), a self-described mother whose child came out as trans "after a few weeks of total immersion in YouTube transition vlogs and other trans-oriented social media.” The site bills itself as “a community of people who question the medicalization of gender-atypical youth,” but it promotes narratives derived from pseudoscientific studies of LGBTQ+ people such as detransition[28], desistance anecdotes and conspiratorial claims about schools and health care providers indoctrinating and “mutilating” children. The site’s authors also heavily rely on pseudonyms to share disinformation, including handles like “Marge Bouvier Simpson,” “fightingunreality,” “missingdaughter” and “skepticaltherapist.”

Despite Caignon’s claim that her child “suddenly” identified as trans, her child, Chiara, says they identified as trans at 16 and came out at 17.[29] In a 2018 interview, Denise said, “I had thought for quite some time that she was likely a lesbian (which I fully supported);” however, remembering “my own dead-certainties at age 17 that turned out to be mistakes when I got older” led Denise on “a research mission” she shared through 4thWaveNow.[30]

According to the site, 4thWaveNow “frequently features posts that focus, often unflatteringly, on the activists and providers involved in pediatric transition” to expose the "harm” done “to the decades of progress achieved by the women’s and LGB liberation movements.”[31] Caignon insists she and the 4thWaveNow community is against conversion therapy for gays and lesbians, but the same cannot be said for transgender kids; and, she argues, that the affirming care model represents a “conspiracy“ targeting children across all sectors of society.[32]

The site’s contributors sometimes claim to be “lifelong liberals” or “leaders” in LGBTQ+ affirming groups like Parents, Friends, and Families of LGBTQ+ People (PFLAG) in an apparent effort to 1) isolate transgender people from their allies and 2) further a narrative that criticism of gender-affirming care does not originate solely from conservative religious figures.

One author, “worriedmom,” claims to be a PFLAG chapter leader and lawyer with a son who works in the pharmaceutical industry. In a post on March 23, 2017, [33] the author argues it once “seemed logical to include the “T” as part of the “LGB,” but then recites a litany of anti-trans legal claims challenging gender identity protections in schools and equating trans identity with an ideology that are consistent with the legal arguments made by conservative Christian legal organizations in the U.S.

An example of the conspiratorial mindset comes from a guest post published on February 29, 2016,[34] authored by “skepticaltherapist” - a psychotherapist with a trans child who claims to be a lifelong liberal. In the post, which is titled ”Tumblr snags another girl, but her therapist-mom knows a thing or two about social contagion,” the author compares a supportive social environment for transgender people to an ”alien mind control device” from Star Trek. The author refers to Tumblr as a manifestation of the “device” and refers to schools with trans-supportive staff as ”cult indoctrinators.” One post in August 2017 compares gender-affirming care to Nazi eugenics programs.[35]

In a post published on November 24, 2017, [36] Jenny Cyphers, a mother of a trans teen and founding board member of the group Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics, shows the power of 4thWaveNow and its partner sites in narrative construction that reinforces cisnormativity and a distrust in science that does not confirm one‘s pre-existing views. In the post, Cyphers recounted her experience “asking questions” about the affirming care model from doctors after her child came out as trans. “I did get answers,“ she said, ”but not the sort I was looking for.”

TransgenderTrend

About six months after 4thWaveNow appeared, in November 2015, educational trainer Stephanie Davies-Arai launched TransgenderTrend, a U.K.-based “organization of parents, professionals and academics” who are “concerned” about the “current trend to diagnose children as transgender.” As researcher Andrea James notes, Davies-Arai founded the blog largely in response to her revulsion to the affirming care model and argued that affirming a trans child is the equivalent of a parent “validating a child’s false belief.”[37] Davies-Arai also characterized the blog’s founding as a ”collaboration” with 4thWaveNow.[38]

In a post celebrating the launch, Davies-Arai takes on a conspiratorial tone asking, “who gains” from the “medicalisation of children” and “whose vested interests” are “fueling the promotion of transgender ideology?” The post claims, gender identity is a “new” and “untested” theory that “contradicts all we know about child and adolescent development and psychology” and welcomes contributions from supporters. In a December 2016 post, Davies-Arai returns to a conspiratorial framing of LGBTQ+-inclusive education programs, referring to them as “a well-funded dangerous social and medical experiment.”[39]

Despite its U.K. origins, in January 2016, the group authored a letter in opposition to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s proposed rule[40] ensuring equal access to housing regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. Like other anti-LGBTQ+ groups that demonize transgender people as predators who attack women, TransgenderTrend argued that HUD’s proposal gives ”insufficient consideration” to the ”safety and privacy of women and girls.”[41]

In a March 2016 letter to members of the U.K. parliament on transgender conversion therapy, Davies-Arai characterizes the end of the CAMH clinic’s conversion therapy practices – led by Dr. Zucker – as politically motivated and gives voice to the old guard’s professional losses, citing Zucker by name several times.[42] Davies-Arai also takes issue with WPATH’s SOC 7. She claims to oppose conversion therapy for “LGB“ people, but warns, again reminiscent of American anti-LGBTQ+ and ”ex-gay” groups, that the affirming care model leaves no room for psychologists and psychotherapists to attempt conversion therapies with transgender people and will put them at risk of professional derision or civil liability.

In a January 2017 post, Davies-Arai refers to transgender identity as an ”ideology,” and, again, advocates for counselors and therapists to use conversion therapy techniques on transgender people, claiming mental health professional who follow the affirming care model are ”merely performing a role to validate an unproven ideology and further a political campaign through their clients.”[43]

Davies-Arai links to a site called Youth Trans Critical Professionals to help substantiate her claims. She also posts “with permission” an article by Sasha Ayad, an American counselor, publisher of the site Inspired Teen Therapy, and co-founder of Gender Exploratory Therapy Association. In the post, Ayad claims that therapists who follow the affirming care model are “wrong” and cites several members of the old guard to make her point, including Dr. James Cantor and ACPeds.[44]

In 2020, TransgenderTrend was invited to give evidence in a U.K. case known as Bell v. Tavistock. The case came amid a campaign by another so-called parent’s group formed in 2018 known as Our Duty to end gender-affirming care, calling it “state-sponsored sterilization.”[45] The Bell case challenged the use of hormone therapies for transgender people under age 16 and sought to declare that trans young people are not capable of providing informed consent for treatment. It was brought against the National Health Service’s (NHS) Gender Identity Development Service (also known as Tavistock clinic) in London by an anonymous parent seeking to prevent her transgender child from receiving affirming care and Keira Bell, a 23-year-old detransitioner.

In February 2020, the U.K.’s High Court agreed to review the complaint and granted permission to TransgenderTrend to submit “evidence” it claimed undermines the affirming care model. The judge refused to allow LGBTQ+ rights groups to present any supportive evidence.[46] In December 2020, the court ruled in favor of Bell, in part citing Drs. Paul Hruz and Stephen Levine,[47] and Tavistock stopped taking referrals for puberty blockers. In September 2021, the NHS won an appeal overturning the ruling.[48]

Still, the coalition of anti-trans activists and pseudoscientist formed to support the case doubled their efforts. While Tavistock was closed and restructured in July 2022,[49] in September 2023, TransgenderTrend sponsored a letter to the U.K. Prime Minister accusing the government of ”allowing gender-identity ideology into schools” and calling for strong regulations to prevent teachers from offering any social affirmation to young LGBTQ+ people in the name of ”protecting children.“ The letter was signed by Davies-Arai and several members of the advocacy groups (e.g. Genspect and Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine), which have become the backbone of the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience movement in the U.S. and U.K.[50]

In addition to posting original blogs and undertaking political activism in conjunction with conversion therapists, both 4thWaveNow and TransgenderTrend cite several articles as authoritative sources for information on transgender identity including the work of other old guard scholars like McHugh and his ACPeds colleague Paul Hruz. They also cite a relatively new figure on the scene, a Pennsylvania-based psychotherapist named Lisa Marchiano.[51] Many of these scholars share a perspective that transgender identity is mental illness and is thus “curable,” as each supports banning gender-affirming care.

Youth Trans Critical Professionals

In 2016, both 4thWaveNow and TransgenderTrend posted articles welcoming the activation of a third site with a shared mission and contributor list, Youth Trans Critical Professionals (YTCP). Like the other two sites, YTCP was originally a blog open to comments that purported to bring together parents and caregivers to share information. 4thWaveNow’s story featured an interview with the site’s publisher, noting that the anonymous creator is a psychotherapist in private practice and a university professor.

In the interview, the unnamed therapist claimed to have become interested in trans identity after noticing a pattern of kids “announcing” they were transgender after “spending a lot of time on social media” and then “requesting access to cross-sex hormones.”[52]

As researcher Zenia Jones points out, the site’s author finds common ground with Dr. Zucker on conversion therapy and advocates a ban on gender-affirming care until at least age 25 – a common political tactic of many anti-trans groups who know support for total bans on gender-affirming care are less politically viable.[53] On YTCP, the author says that although the first reaction of most parents was to affirm their child’s identity after they come out, the “urge to support their child“ should be suppressed. Instead, ”caution should be the word of the day” when it comes to transgender identity.[54]

In a June 2016 post that makes several pseudoscientific claims, YTCP compares transgender identity to a “trend” and the affirming care model to the phenomenon of therapists fraudulently claiming to recover “lost memories.”[55] The author also cites her fear that the internet is a source of ”social contagion” through which transgender identity spreads and her belief that the media and government are colluding to normalize transgender identity. Similar themes appear in many of the articles published by YTCP and its contributors.

An email leak in 2023 exposed the author of the site as Lisa Marchiano. The psychotherapist and contributor to 4thWaveNow and TransgenderTrend is deeply connected with the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network, and is a key figure in the creation of ROGD and the myth that LGBTQ+ identity spreads through ”social contagion.”[56] Despite years of posting online claiming to be a therapist who “works with detransitioners” and offering commentary about topics such as detransitioning,[57] Marchiano has admitted her “work” with detransitioners is not "clinical work.”[58]

In addition to revealing Marchiano as the author of YTCP, the same email leak linked Marchiano to a pseudonym called “Lisa Bell.” In June 2016, Bell signed a letter from the National Association of Scholars, a right-wing American nonprofit, claiming that children were being exploited by the inclusion of gender identity protections in federal civil rights statutes.[59] Bell’s virtual signature appeared alongside her affiliation - the founder of Youth Trans Critical Professionals.

The letter claims “the call for transgender rights is … part of a larger movement aimed at a fundamental transformation of marriage, family, sexual relations, and “gender identity” in our society, not to mention biology” and claims civil rights protections for transgender kids in schools represent a “reckless government overreach” that “rejects scientific reality.”

Along with Bell (Marchiano), the letter is co-signed by representatives of numerous hate groups, including the anti-Muslim group Center for Security Policy, and anti-LGBTQ+ groups ACPeds, Family Research Council, American Family Association, Eagle Forum and MassResistance. Members of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CARE) and the National Task Force for Therapy Equality also signed the letter. CARE was founded by Star Parker, who has claimed the “B” in LGBTQ+ stands for “bestiality.”[60] The National Task Force for Therapy Equality is led by ACPeds member David Pickup and advocates conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ people.